Alexander M. Zoltai's Blog, page 136
November 6, 2014
Helping Youth Write Stories Through A Game :-)
“OH, My! Storytelling is much too serious to be taught through games!”
That last sentence is from a character I created, in a story I might write, who has overblown ideas about the “sanctity” of stories…
Certainly, storytelling is Important; but, if a game can help youth learn thesubtleties of telling a story, Bring On The Game!
I’ve written before about Storium—“It turns creative writing into a multiplayer game and lets you tell any story that you can imagine.”
If you want to try playing Storium...
November 5, 2014
Arts & Letters ~~~ Daily !
Last year I wrote an article featuring a site that’s described as containing “…well-written and well-argued book reviews, essays, and other articles in the realm ofideas.”
That article had one official Heap of links from the site:
Newspapers,Magazines,Book Reviews,Columnists,Weblogs;and, as they say, much, much more…
The site was created by Denis Dutton:
“Dutton was best known for the web aggregation site Arts & Letters Daily(which is the site I’m writing about in this post…), which he founded in...
November 4, 2014
“Books In Browsers” ~ Where Is Digital Publishing Headed?
It’s easy to think that digital publishing is moving swiftly away from the Internet browser—Apps on phones, E-books on phones and tablets, and dedicated E-readers…
Yet, last month, the New York Public Library and the Frankfurt Book Fair sponsored the 5th AnnualBooks In Browsers Summit, “…for the new generation of internetpublishing companies, focusing on developers and designers who arebuilding and launching tools for online storytelling, expression, and art.”
The BiB’s official media partner,...
November 3, 2014
What Are Your Writing Habits?
Ask 100 writers about their writing habits and you might just get 150 methods—half of them changing their habits while they speak…
Image Courtesy of Marcel Hol ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/marzie
Writing is a slippery profession and writers’ habits can slide around and mutate quickly—though, there are those who have always done and will always do it just so…
I realize that “habit” usually refers to something developed over quite a span of time; but, with strong enough motivation, a new ha...
October 30, 2014
Friday Poll ~ What’s Your Writing Space?
As always, we’ll begin with the results from last week’s poll—Readers’ & Writers’ Distractions.
The following table lists distractions from most votes to least votes forboth categories…
Writers
Family
Chores
Work
Noise
Paying Bills
Myself
Social Media
‘Net Surfing
YouTube
~~~
Readers
Chores
Social Media
Noise
Family
Work
Having to wear two pairs of glasses
Myself
Phone
‘Net Surfing
Paying Bills
~~~
Now, on to this week’s new poll—What Kind of Writer’s Space Do You Have?
Obviously, this one’s for Writers ~ Next week’s...
What Is “Literature”?
Defining “Literature” is a more slippery task than writing it…
Image Courtesy of ostillac callisto ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/ostillac
If you look to the root meanings of the word, you find it becoming a letter—written to the reader…
The best definition I’ve found is “well-written” and “dealing with universal ideas”…
Naturally, “well-written” does not mean written in a way that confuses the average reader—in spite of the opinions of various “literary ‘experts'”…
And, also naturally, “deal...
October 29, 2014
Do We Really Know What “Writing” Is?
I’m a writer…
Image Courtesy of http://www.freeimages.com/profile/finerain
I’ve published5 books and I’m working on number 6…
I’ve been writing this blog for 3 years, 9 months, and 29 days…
The longer I’ve been writing the more writing has changed…
Most of us learn to write at a young age—most of us do some sort of writing daily—some of us do professional writing—some do creative writing—some creative writers make a living at it…
Yet how often do we notice how we change as writers?
29 days into the...
October 28, 2014
NaNoWriMo Is Nearly Upon Us ~ Check Out All These Helpful Writing Tools
Not every writer, aspiring or accomplished, gets involved in NaNoWriMo—National Novel Writing Month.
Image courtesy of National Novel Writing Month
November 1st is when the writers are released from the gate…
Each is racing against themselves—write 50,000 words before the end of November…
No one expects those words to be brilliant or compelling—most folks end up with a very messy first draft…
But…
They may just have written the raw copy of what, if revised and edited, might be a good novel.
310,000...
October 27, 2014
Starting Today ~ Amazon Lets Readers Help Decide Who Gets Published
Some would say that readers have always decided who gets published; but, the truth is that they have, at best, helped determine who gets published again…
Image from Wikipedia ~ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Mia5793
Before the digital-book-age, legacy publishers were the only people who chose who got published.
In fact, through media manipulation, legacy publishers helped drive what most readers decided was worth reading.
In September, in the post, 3 More Ways To Publish AnE-book, I reve...
October 26, 2014
I Get Interviewed About My Writing :-)
I have around 50 Author Interviews on my blog…
And, I’ve been discovering the joys of a site called About.me—a place to create a digital Bio page and a space to meet and interact with some very cool folks…
I think it qualifies as Social Media…
I met Jan Jacob Mekes on About.me…
From his Bio:
“Jan Jacob Mekes is an English writer born in the body of a native Dutch speaker, in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. He loves reading, writing, cycling, and photography. His favourite book isDon Quixote, he lov...
